Abstract:

D.A.Nomishan is well known for his quote: “Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.” Over the last few years, an increased focus has been put on student active learning and student active assessment. However, we seem to fail in making students experience that they have genuine autonomy when addressing learning and assessment. We believe this is due to teacher-centered approaches to learning which very often leaves students in the dark since they are mostly told what to do and a lot is dependent on the educator and his/her personal pedagogic/didactic skills. Fazey & Fazey conducted a study on autonomy in learning in 2001. Based on the study they explain: “Teachers need to be aware of the potential for autonomy in first year undergraduates, so that this can be nurtured rather than discouraged (Fazey, D. M., & Fazey, J. A. 2001). This is exactly what we aim to do.

We propose an approach of a new methodology for organizing coursework with the goal of decreasing student fatigue and increasing the average performance for students through increased participation. We have decided on naming our design “Student Corrected Outcomes (SCO). At the heart of our method is the recognition that compulsory courses as part of a degree can be, and often is, a barrier for student motivation and degree fulfillment. We hypothesize, that by giving students increased agency and autonomy as described by self-determination theory (SDT), they will to a larger degree personalize and shape the outcome of their coursework, leading to better performance, more engagement and higher motivation. We know that to be active participants creates agency. There is also a high possibility that students will implement teaching methods related to what the learners view as more “interesting. However, initial experimentation has shown that drastically increasing agency results in more confusion and anxiety among the students, we therefore couple the increase in agency with meaningful gamification (Reiners, T., & Wood, L. C. 2015, chapter 1) such as safe repetition, training environments, “side quests,” “save points” and levels, but also rigorous and abundant dissemination of course criteria and proposed study techniques.

We aim to design an approach which enables students to determine workload, schedule and effort based on set criteria for assessment and, to an extent, decide the scope of their final evaluation. In this paper, we will discuss our method and justification and use our upcoming topic “Programming 1 – Automation and Gaming” as a case study for the methodology.

This paper will explain the theoretical foundations for our approach, the design of our approach and the methodology we will use to measure the effect and success of such an approach. It will also contain suggestions on how to design similar approaches to other courses in general showing a proof of concept that will be implemented in our course starting in 2022 that we will monitor closely.

References:
[1] Fazey, D. M., & Fazey, J. A. (2001). The potential for autonomy in learning: Perceptions of competence, motivation and locus of control in first-year undergraduate students. Studies in higher education, 26(3), 345-361.
[2] Reiners, T., & Wood, L. C. (2015). Gami cation in Education and Business. Berlin: Springer.

Keywords:

Student active learning, autonomy, agency, self assessment.